This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Assassin's Creed 2: Sweet visuals, silky controls, multi-faceted plot

Between Ubisoft Montreal's Assassin's Creed 2 and BioWare's Dragon Age: Origins (see review at left), made-in-Canada electronic epics have made the last few weeks hell on the ol' social life. And on the ol' sleep cycle. And on the ol' nutrition.

Renaissance Italy is a lovely setting for 'Assassin&rsquo;s Creed 2,' where the greatest pleasures come from seeing the sights and soaking up the colour. (SUPPLIED PHOTO)

By Darren Zenkospecial to the star

Sat., Nov. 21, 2009

Xbox 360/PlayStation 3

$59.99

Rated M

Between Ubisoft Montreal's Assassin's Creed 2 and BioWare's Dragon Age: Origins (see review at left), made-in-Canada electronic epics have made the last few weeks hell on the ol' social life. And on the ol' sleep cycle. And on the ol' nutrition.

But what's one to do? Not play the heck out of two of the best games of the year, if not the decade? Come on; there are plenty of hours in the day, if you've got your priorities straight. The only real choice is, will you spend any given all-nighter in a bloody pseudo-medieval fantasy world of dark magic, or among the alleys and plazas of Renaissance Italy, perforating the lungs of Templar bankers?

Article Continued Below

If you opt for Templar-perforation, you're in for a lot of fun. Assassin's Creed 2 adheres in almost all its aspects to the format laid down by its predecessor – the gradually unfolding historical sandbox setting, the roof-running cat-burglar parkour, the art and science of offing targets in broad-daylight crowds – but even given its tale of bloody revenge and dark deeds, everything in AC2 seems to have been splashed with a little more joy. Grim killer Altair here makes way for young Etzio, ne'er-do-well son of a prosperous banking family, and there's somehow a greater feeling of freedom, of looseness, as you propel him across sun-baked tile roofs and guide him up the sheer walls of moonlit cathedrals.

As with Dragon Age, there's so much going on on so many levels – the sweet visuals, the silky controls, the multi-faceted plot – in this game that to examine its totality would take way more space than we've got here, so I'm going to have to narrow it down to one word. Appropriately for a game set amid the splendour and squalor of some of the most fabled cities in Italy, if not all of Europe, that word is "tourism." Combat, pursuit, stealth, story, assassinations, sure, but the greatest pleasures in Assassin's Creed 2 come from simply seeing the sights and soaking up the colour.

Visually, this tourism is a treat. AC2 is one of the most gorgeous games out there, just as the first game was (and is), but there's something about applying this richness to a simulated Renaissance Italy that tickles in a way that the original Assassin's Creed's Holy Land mostly didn't.

This has everything to do with the headspace that time and place occupies in our cultural imagination; Crusades-era Jerusalem is interesting, okay, but if given the chance at a cyber-genetic virtual reality holiday in the manner of series meta-protagonist Desmond Miles, I'll take 15th-century Venice any day. Especially if I'm going to be gleefully spider-manning all over the place, rather than plodding the cobblestones with my nose in a guidebook...

The exhilarating being-there-ness of the game goes deeper than sightseeing. There's a texture, a granularity to AC2's simulated world (a simulation of a simulation, actually) that draws you in and keeps you there. As you explore, literally rubbing shoulders with the world's digital denizens, you're constantly (gasp!) learning – about the social structure of the time, the roles of various trades, the development of the banking system, the politics of the Italian city-states, the finer points of usury, the history of architecture and art.

You even get to hang around with Leonardo da Vinci, here perfectly (and hilariously) cast into a Renaissance version of the geek sidekick. It's all too much fun.

And, yes; the killing and skulking and action. That's fun, too, and it plays wonderfully.

But, you know, these days the shelves are thick with wonderful action games; very few of them offer the degree of richness, of place-ness, that you get with Assassin's Creed 2.

Delivered dailyThe Morning Headlines Newsletter

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com